Storytime
by Ariza Luca
Summary: Authors write stories. Ariza's always liked stories, ever since she was born, ever since she'd read her first book. But it hadn't quite hit her until that moment that stories can change. (Rated T for safeTY) (IRREGULAR UPDATES!)
1. Cube Land (Sort Of)

"Ahhhhh," the girl at the computer grumbled, "why did I decide to transfer all of the chapters to four other websites _after_ writing 83 chapters out?"

This girl had short black hair that teetered precariously over her thin, pale face, one purple and one red streak interrupting the thick black that tapered into a curl at the end. Her lime-green eyes, reminiscent of a lollipop, were hooded over with irritation as she leaned back, adjusting the solid flannel that she was wearing over her violet t-shirt. Her jean-covered legs were lifted up and plopped on a cushion on a seat nearby, her dark brown leather combat boots resting on the floor next to the desk.

"Stupid me..." she grumbled again, before simply sending her computer to sleep and shutting the lid. "Ah, I'll transfer the rest later."

Grabbing her bag with the notebooks in it, snagging a sandwich from the fridge without checking what kind it was, and tucking her lucky pen behind her ear automatically, she pulled on her boots and made her way out the door, plugging her earbuds into her ears and slipping the phone into its holster, where it locked in with a soft _click_.

Ariza Luca took a deep breath before tossing her thick black hair (the curly, tapered end dripping back into her eyes not a full second later) and continuing her way out of doors, grinning as her hair grazed the inside of the doorframe- her growth spurt had knocked her height up to nearly 6 feet now.

She'd walked a good way- in fact, she was in the middle of the forest behind her house, where nobody _ever_ went, except for her- when her phone suddenly buzzed, indicating that she'd gotten a notification. Carefully, she flipped her phone out of the holster, glancing at the screen only casually, already preparing to put it back.

She froze, green eyes widening.

A notification from Minecraft: Story Mode.

Her favorite game of all time.

But she hadn't gotten any notifications since the last episode had come out last year in September or October...

Slowly, she raised the phone to eye-level and swiped it open. Placing her thumb on the Home button, the phone clicked open, showing the title screen. The Wi-Fi wasn't existent in the forest, but the phone signal was pretty good right now. Which was good.

Hopefully her data didn't run out...

Ariza checked the 'Episodes' button, but there was no telltale blue arrow pointing at it that meant a new episode, although there _was_ one next to the 'play' button.

Sighing, she pressed the play button and opened straight into the first episode, although on her current save file, she should've been on Episode 5... she was replaying the game (again) for the... 13th time...?

(Or no, was it the 14th...?)

The first episode's title screen was the same as always-

Ariza double-checked and corrected herself. No, it _wasn't_ the same as always, there was something else lurking behind the people in the title screen picture. No, some _one_ else.

She squinted carefully at the screen to make sure she wasn't imagining this.

... no, there was _definitely_ something there.

Thinking that this was probably just some sort of ruse to get her to replay the game yet again, she tapped on the 'Begin Episode 1' button.

The next thing she knew, she was falling.

"What in-?!"

Her phone was still in her hand, but she was no longer surrounded by trees and dirt and sunlight, but instead squares that looked like stained glass, bars of green and blue, and flickering pixels. They seemed to be shifting, rearranging themselves...

She slammed into something that felt _remarkably_ like a wall, and felt the pixels and things lock into place around her.

And then a bright, white light eclipsed everything.

* * *

Ariza was back in the forest.

She knew this because she could hear the rustling of trees in wind, although the birdsongs that had been twittering away madly in her ears were gone. She also lay flat on her back in some grass. (Which was weird, because in the forest she was in, there _wasn't_ any grass- just dead leaves, poison ivy, and dirt. Lots of it, too.) Had she just fainted and hallucinated or something?

Sitting up, she casually examined her hands.

No, nothing looked weird, except-

Ariza blinked and took a closer look.

Yep. She apparently now had a tattoo on the back of her hand.

It wasn't just a scar, which she had a lot of on her hands from various little incidents. It was an honest-to-goodness tattoo, a glowing purple music note entwined with a book.

Ooookay. She didn't remember this tattoo, but maybe she'd doodled it on the back of her hand when she wasn't paying attention.

Getting to her feet, she looked around.

An uneasy feeling spread through her as she realized that she wasn't back in the forest after all. But she certainly wasn't dreaming either.

For the first thing, the spider that was about the size of her math textbook was a bit too real to simply consider a hallucination or a dream.

It hissed, red eyes flaring as it regarded her, although it didn't attack yet.

Ariza put her hands up in surrender. "H-hey... I-I'm not here to hurt you," she said, cursing the way she stuttered over her words. It wasn't that she wasn't scared of spiders- writing about twelve fanfictions about them had ended up getting rid of that fear for the most part.

It was just that this one was so _big..._

Compared to the Minecraft ones, though, it was downright tiny.

Ariza was about to step back, before she paused, spotting the way one of its back legs was a little crooked. "Ah... did you hurt yourself?" she asked, before rolling her eyes. Yes, of course, she was talking to a spider.

Better than talking to herself, she supposed.

She took a careful step towards the spider, and it skittered backwards a step.

"Ah- I'm not here to hurt you," she called out, still in a gentle way, and the spider stopped.

She was able to move her way to the spider without it attacking her, although she was keeping a close eye on it and it was doing the same for her. Kneeling down, she reached into her bag- and blinked.

Okay, this was definitely getting weird; her bag was bigger on the inside and _definitely_ contained more than just her notebooks and a couple of bandages. If she had to compare it to anything, she would've compared it to Hermione's bag after casting an Undetectable Expansion Charm on it (or whatever the charm was).

She decided to worry about it later and reached in, carefully pulling out a set of bandages and raising them. The spider was still watching her, and she carefully wrapped the bandage around the spider's back leg. Besides an initial hiss when she touched it, the spider remained quiet for the most part.

"And... there! You should be fine now," Ariza sighed a bit, feeling a smile spread over her face.

The spider stared at her.

"Um... I'm going to get going now. See ya!" She gently patted the spider on the back, feeling it hum beneath her hand as it... 'purred', before pushing herself to her feet and walking off in a different direction, trying to identify _where_ she was.

She hadn't gone twenty feet when suddenly realizing that she wasn't alone. She turned around to see, with a slight jolt of surprise, that the spider was following her, although at a safe distance, staring at her with those luminous red eyes.

"... you can tag along, if you'd like..."

Ariza was even more surprised when the spider skittered over and crawled so that it was perched on her shoulder, making a series of clicking sounds that sounded a bit like purring or something. It was almost as though the spider had understood what she'd meant.

She corrected herself a moment later. It _had_ understood what she meant. She shouldn't assume that a spider didn't know what she was saying just because she was used to them being stupid back where she lived. She was in unfamiliar territory here. And that meant that she couldn't make any assumptions- not until she knew exactly where she was.

She realized she'd just been literally standing in place for a whole three minutes without moving a muscle, so she now started walking off again. "Alright, let's see what we have here..."

* * *

Ariza had been wandering around for another twenty minutes before she heard a sound that wasn't the spider purring happily from where it was perched on her shoulder. She looked around before spotting the tiny ocelot sitting on a rock nearby, a little ways behind her. It had to be a fairly young one, because it was _tiny_.

"... hi?"

The ocelot meowed back.

Okay, so now there was an ocelot following her.

Why was there an ocelot following her? This was bothering her a bit. It shouldn't be following her. She didn't have...

Any...

Thing...

Ariza felt her face literally drop into a pure, deadpan look as she remembered exactly what else she'd brought with her.

Reaching into her bag, she pulled out the _fried fish sandwich_ she'd brought with her.

(Both the spider on her shoulder and the ocelot sitting a little ways away perked up at the sight of the sandwich.)

"Is this what you're after, kitty?" she asked the cat, holding the sandwich up so that both the spider and the cat couldn't just lunge at it.

The ocelot meowed again, hazel eyes locked firmly on the sandwich.

Sighing, Ariza pulled the sandwich apart, leaving most of the fish on the ground for the cat to eat before slipping the rest of it to the spider on her shoulder, being very careful about getting her fingers too close to the pincers. Not that she needed to worry about it too much; the spider got the fish into its mouth and swallowed it without cutting off any important body parts. She ate the bread while she watched, vaguely noticing the way it smelled of fried fish as the ocelot happily ate away at the fish.

"Alright," she said at last, when she'd finished the fish, "I'll be on my way now."

She'd made it twenty feet when she felt a fluffy thing nuzzle up to her leg. Not entirely surprised this time, she looked down to see the little ball of golden fluff curling around her legs, meowing happily.

"I don't have any more fish with me," Ariza told it.

It kept meowing anyway.

Sighing, she leaned down and tickled its tummy, feeling the cat worm into her hands, and lifted it off the ground, staring at the hazel-eyed ball of fluff that was currently staring back at her hopefully, tail wiggling around happily with its tiny paws poking her hands. A quick glance showed her that it was a boy that she was holding at arms' length.

Cats should not be able to make puppy-dog eyes.

"Ahhh, fine, I'll bring you with me," Ariza sighed at last, giving up on the mental struggle that was convincing herself that she did not want this cat.

Part of the reason was because she'd never had a pet before. Like, ever. Never _once_ in her life had she owned a pet, except for some fish that had died after a week when she was seven.

She'd barely completed the thought when the ocelot mewed happily and perched himself on her other shoulder, making himself at home almost immediately.

The spider hissed protectively at him, eyes flaring from where it was perched on her shoulder.

The ocelot hissed protectively back at the spider, as if protecting his own territory.

Ariza repressed an amused roll of her eyes and went along with her walking as the spider and the ocelot quietly 'bickered' from their positions on her shoulder.

"... I should probably give you guys a name."

* * *

 **A/N: Writing an OC story for when I either:**

 **A) Have writers block on anything.**

 **B) Am procrastinating uploading all of the current chapters of Hybrid: Cinematic Mode to Wattpad, Deviantart, and AO3.**

 **C) Don't want to _write_ a chapter of Hybrid: Cinematic Mode due to (B).**

 **Hope you guys liked!**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


	2. Judgement

"Okay, let's see. Names, names..." Ariza had situated herself behind a random tree after a good deal of walking, pulling out her phone and scrolling through the Internet, searching for names. Surprisingly, she had 4 bars of Wi-Fi in this place. Huh.

She turned to the spider first, said spider turning to watch her and interrupting the extremely long bickering session it had been having with the ocelot.

"Um, Arachne?"

The spider hissed. That was probably a no, then...

"Err... Charlotte?"

Another hiss.

"Penelope?"

The spider hissed even more vehemently.

"Ariadne?"

A pause, before the spider hissed again.

"Muffet?"

A longer pause, but the spider still hissed.

Ariza was starting to get a bit annoyed by this, and finally sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I don't know- Rosie?" she finally suggested. It had been the name of her one and only Webkinz pet as a child.

(For that matter, the Webkinz pet had been a duck, but, details.)

To her surprise, the spider bobbed its head up and down as if nodding at Ariza, making a series of humming sounds that was oddly like purring.

"... uh, okay then... Rosie?" She tried out the name and found that she liked it.

The spider 'nodded' again.

"... okay." Ariza wasn't questioning it. Nope. Not a word. Not even a questioning glance. Nope. She turned to the ocelot this time, feeling very doubtful about her ability to name it properly. Oh well, trying didn't hurt, right?

"... Atticus?"

The ocelot hissed, his fur rising up on end.

"... er... Anakin?" To be fairly honest, Ariza's knowledge of Star Wars was _basic_ at the most. She knew what some of the characters were named, and what happened to certain people (Darth Maul- or, no... well, one of the Sith Lords- killed his loved one, Darth Vader died, Luke was Darth Vader's son, Luke and Leia had liked each other before realizing they were siblings, blah blah blah), but she didn't know the majority of it.

A long pause as the ocelot considered the name, before shaking his head.

"Okay, Legolas?" Her knowledge of the Lord of the Rings was also limited. As in, she knew there was a wizard called Gandalf the Gray, and there was a hobbit called Frodo involved, and someone called Legolas (who she was pretty sure was an elf). (She knew considerably more about its predecessor, _The Hobbit,_ but it was still a very limited store of knowledge that she had about this subject).

The cat shook his head again.

"Bilbo Baggins?"

He hissed this time. He must _really_ have not liked that name.

Ariza gave up after a few more names and had just started droning the names of her favorite characters. She'd gone through Ivor, Reuben, Jesse, Lukas, Professor Layton, Luke Triton, Will Treaty, Halt, Harry Potter, Foxy, Freddy...

Yeah, she was bored.

"Laurie?" she finally droned to the ocelot, feeling sure that it was just going to hiss again.

To her faint surprise, the ocelot hesitated for a good few minutes, before bobbing up and down and 'nodding' at her.

"... o-okay! Laurie. T-that's a nice name!" Ariza stammered out, hardly believing her luck. Finally, the boring process of deciding a name for this cat was done!

To be fairly truthful, though, the ocelot was extremely picky.

"Laurie and Rosie... I see!" Ariza grinned and reached out, patting both of them. The spider made a lot of funny purring sounds as it nestled into her hand, while the tiny ball of fluff that was Laurie mewed and tried to crawl up her shirt. This made Ariza laugh- she was ticklish. She tried to extract him from her shirt, but the little cat was just scrambling everywhere and making her laugh even harder as he scrambled all over her upper body.

She'd finally calmed down when she heard a crunching sound, and her head snapped up as she quickly moved to her feet, Rosie scrambling into a defensive position on her shoulder and Laurie poking his head out of the top of her shirt.

She almost immediately gasped, eyes widening in shock.

Sitting not too far from her feet was a little pig wearing a black Ender Dragon costume- a costume that Ariza recognized from having seen it over 12 times, albeit in a very blocky form.

So... this meant that the pig was...

"Hey, Reuben, what did you- oh!"

Laurie leaped into a defensive position on her right shoulder, hissing as his claws dug into her shoulder. Ariza's eyes went even wider as she saw who'd spoken, ignoring the needles of pain that stabbed into her skin.

There, standing in front of her, was a short girl with long black hair with a pin keeping most of it out of her emerald-green eyes. She wore pale blue dungarees over a white-and-red t-shirt, her brown boots poking out from underneath the rolled-up pant bottoms.

"H-hey, y-you have a spider on your shoulder-!" JESSE stammered, grabbing for her wooden sword.

Ariza threw her hands up in surrender. "N-no! Don't, Rosie's harmless!" she exclaimed, reaching up one hand to protect the spider, Rosie hissing angrily from where she was perched on Ariza's shoulder.

Jesse froze, her hand halfway to her sword, staring at the black-haired girl with streaks in her hair. The two of them stood there like that for a minute, before the two of them relaxed, Ariza warily lowering her hand from where it was keeping Rosie safe and Jesse rubbing her hair awkwardly. "Ahaha... sorry. I didn't realize... Rosie, was it? I didn't realize Rosie was your pet."

Ariza glanced at Rosie. That was true; besides the bandage keeping her crooked leg from getting even more injured, there was nothing to indicate that it was a pet or a 'tamed' spider. "I-it's fine. I guess I should find her a ribbon or something..."

Jesse glanced at the spider as well, before sheepishly smiling and extending her hand to Ariza, having to tilt her head back quite a bit to meet her eyes. "Um, I'm Jesse, and this here's Reuben. Nice to meet you!"

Ariza nodded with a faint smile, reaching out and taking Jesse's hand and giving it a good shake, marveling all the while how it felt so _real._ "I'm Ariza, and I believe you've already had the pleasure of meeting Rosie. And this little ball of fluff here is Laurie. Pleasure to meet you as well," she replied. "What are you up to?"

Jesse paused, giving Ariza a wary look.

"Hey, I don't bite," and Ariza put her hands up in surrender. She paused, before amending, "Well, unless provoked."

The slight joke was enough to make Jesse laugh, the uncomfortable look on her face melting off almost immediately. "I'm looking for materials for our Endercon build."

"Oh, that's cool. Whatcha guys building?" the girl asked, tilting her head slightly in curiosity. (Considering there's three options to choose from, it's a valid question.)

"We're building a fireworks dispenser with an Enderman," Jesse said cheerfully. "My friends and I split up to get the rest of the materials." To emphasize her point, she jerked her thumb to point over her shoulder.

Ariza let out a low whistle and nodded. "Not bad."

That was especially true because she couldn't do _anything_ with redstone. Not even do doors and lights and stuff like that.

Jesse beamed at the praise. "Thanks! We're looking for some wool..."

"Oh, in that case, there's a big gaggle of sheep about fifty feet back," Ariza said automatically, pointing in the direction she'd come from. (She'd indeed stumbled upon the large knot of sheep, all of them _baa_ -ing and nearly knocking Ariza over when she'd tried to poke her way through them.)

"Oh! In that case- I mean, I hate to bother you if you're doing something- but would you mind helping us out with the sheep?"

Ariza shook her head, feeling a warm smile spread over her face. "Not at all."

* * *

Olivia had come back with a lot of dyes from her little expedition, and Axel had gotten some more wood just in case. Jesse wasn't back yet, and Olivia was starting to get a bit worried.

Finally, just as Olivia was about to suggest to Axel that they should go looking for Jesse, the black-haired girl emerged, covered in little fluffy bits of wool and looking up at something in a nearby tree.

Olivia felt relief flood over her, and she'd just raised her arm to wave when another girl emerged from the foliage as well, having to duck to avoid hitting her head on a tree branch. Her short black hair with the red and purple streak through it was a bit tousled, and her lime green eyes sparkled with amusement as she listened to Jesse saying something.

On her shoulder, a tiny ocelot and a tiny spider (well, tiny for the spiders here in this world, anyways) were perched, hissing at each other as if 'arguing'. The girl ignored this, adjusting the bag slung over her shoulder carefully.

"Whoa," Axel mumbled, "who's that?"

Olivia shrugged, shaking her head. She didn't know- she hardly ever went to town.

"Oh! Hey guys!" Jesse jogged over, having finally spotted that they were back. "This is Ariza. She helped out with getting the wool to make the Enderman," and she gave the tall girl a bright grin.

Now, Olivia wasn't super _short_ _(_ unlike Jesse), but she had to tilt her head back a bit to make eye contact with the girl. Axel was taller than her by at least 6 inches, but then again Axel was super tall and it was hard to find someone taller than he was.

Ariza raised her hand in a slight wave, a faint but friendly smile playing on her face.

Olivia didn't want to relax, though. She was good at reading people, and she'd done just that as the two of them approached.

Ariza had a straight-backed but lazy stance, but at the same time her stance basically _screamed_ that she was just being prepared and conserving energy. Her eyes were faintly hooded with disinterest, but the lime green irises sparked with caution as she scanned both Axel and Olivia. She was thin and tall, but at the same time there was a telltale sign that she was used to being in battle, or at least used to being jumped by other people.

There were an odd bulge at her waist that was obscured by her flannel jacket that could've been concealing a weapon, as was the large back slung over her shoulder that she was wielding with ease despite its size and obvious bulge. There was also the fact that there was a _spider_ on her shoulder- while a spider was definitely one of the weaker mobs, without a weapon they could be quite formidable. And this girl had no visible weapons on her.

In general, Olivia got the feeling that if she tried to attack this girl, she'd find herself flat on her back with a weapon pointed at her throat in under ten seconds with no clue of how it had happened.

Ariza reached into her pocket, making Olivia jump a bit- Ariza was directly staring at her now with a blank face. Pulling out a photograph with her face on it, she handed it to Olivia.

"...?"

"Here, have a picture. They last longer." The corner of Ariza's lips twitched up after a few moments.

Olivia felt the tension go out of her shoulders as she couldn't repress the giggles that threatened to bubble out of her.

"Pff-"

The slightest puff of air that escaped Axel's lips was enough to set the dark-skinned girl off, and Olivia burst into peals of laughter as she doubled over. Being a pessimist, it was nice when she laughed and escaped that world of ominous pessimism, even if just for a moment.

Ariza laughed too, the entire group in the clearing dissolving into giggles. Olivia could've sworn that even Reuben, the spider, and the ocelot were sniggering as well.

Olivia was going to reserve judgement on this girl for now... but she definitely didn't seem that bad.

* * *

 **A/N: Ahh... next chapter will be amusing x3**

 **When it comes out.**

 **Eventually.**

 **SofiaTheWriter88: (laughs) Thanks. I'm just procrastinating, so I might not end up getting very far with it, but whatever. xD**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


	3. Pardon Me, I'm an Esper

"We know what we're building, we've got all the stuff for it," Axel was saying animatedly, eyes gleaming happily, "we are _so_ ready."

"This year it's going to be different," Olivia said, being optimistic for once. "I'm not just ready to build- I'm ready to _win._ " She then poked the tall girl in the arm (which was about as high as she could reach) with a slight grin. "Also, this year, we've got Ariza!"

"Ahaha... I'm not sure that's a good thing. I'm not good with redstone... or building in general..." the short-haired girl grinned sheepishly. On her shoulder, Laurie and Rosie were still hissing at each other.

(When they'd asked about it, Ariza had just rolled her eyes with a laugh. "It's normal. Don't worry about it.")

Axel grinned and was about to reply when a guy passed by, muttering. "Nice pig... _losers._ "

All of them stopped in their tracks, Axel and Olivia glaring in his direction with Jesse wincing. Ariza shook her head and cupped her hands to her mouth. "Nice hat, jerk!" she called after him, albeit in an extremely serene tone. She then turned around and patted Jesse on the back. "Don't listen to him, Jess. He's an idiot. Reuben looks adorable." To prove her point, she leaned down and patted Reuben on the head, making the pig grumble happily.

Axel winced as he realized who they were approaching. "Oh, great. It's Lukas and the Ocelots. The rivalry continues."

Olivia let out a little huff as she realized what they were wearing. "Man. They've got matching leather jackets and everything," she mumbled, tugging at one of her pigtails.

"So cool," Axel agreed wistfully.

"I used to have a leather jacket," Ariza hummed thoughtfully. She paused for a moment. "... I have no idea what happened to it."

Unfortunately, due to the round of giggling that followed that serene statement, one of the members of the Ocelots- Aiden- happened to spot them. "Well, well, well- if it isn't the Order of the _Losers_!" he sneered, making two of the others turn around to see them.

"Great, the fail squad's here. They even got a new member for their loser patrol," Maya sneered at them.

Gill snorted. "Lukas, get a load of these-" He stopped mid-sentence, eyes widening. "Whoa, you have an ocelot!" he exclaimed, pointing at Ariza's shoulder.

Jesse glanced at Ariza, who was glancing at Laurie, who was still hissing away at Rosie- wait, where did Rosie go?

Jesse smothered a grin when she noticed Rosie clinging to the back of Ariza's jacket, hiding from sight.

"What? Whoa, you do!" Aiden exclaimed, looking startled. "Why are you hanging out with them instead of us?"

Ariza arched her eyebrow at Aiden, staring at him for a few seconds, before saying calmly, with a perfectly straight face, "Pardon me, good sir, you've obviously mistaken me for someone who gives a damn."

There was a short, stunned silence-

Jesse tried- unsuccessfully- to stifle her laughter. The group behind Ariza began to giggle. Aiden's facial expression was becoming more and more enraged. Maya and Gill had the most stunned looks on their faces, torn between also laughing and getting angry at the insult. Even _Lukas_ had turned around.

Ariza's poker face melted into a smile, and she finally laughed, shaking her head a bit and making that curly bit of hair bounce around. "Haha! Sorry. That was the best line I had for the situation. There were two others, but they wouldn't have worked as well."

"What were they?" Gill asked, seemingly despite himself.

"The first one was the polite one that I probably _would_ have gone with had you asked me the question _before_ insulting my friends," Ariza replied, still smiling faintly. "Something along the lines of the fact that I haven't ever met you before, so it'd just be awkward. And the other one was quite rude, so..." The amused look faded off of Ariza's face, replaced by an awkward one. "... never mind."

"No, no, what were you going to say? We're curious now," Maya said, still grinning.

Ariza arched her eyebrow, the amusement on her face totally gone now. "You promise you're not going to get mad at me and try to beat me up?"

"Sure," Lukas said warily, speaking up for the first time since the whole encounter had begun, looking rather curious despite himself. "So what were you going to say?"

Ariza arched her eyebrow at them, no hint of amusement on her face anymore. There was a short pause before she replied, tersely, "F**k off."

There was another stunned silence, before Ariza uncrossed her arms and splayed her hands, as if to say _see?_ "The only reason I didn't say it is because you didn't personally involve me, so it technically wasn't really my business. Although, I certainly _could_ have made it my business."

Even though Ariza's expression was still blank, a dangerous undertone had crept into her voice. "After all, once you mess with my friends, you have decided to make it personal with me."

A beat as everyone processed this fact.

Jesse still didn't know Ariza very well... but one fact was clear as day already.

The tall girl didn't look it... but Ariza was _extremely_ scary.

Then she smiled slightly, dispelling the extremely tense atmosphere that had just settled over the group and nodding her head at the booth. "Lukas, I think the lady at the booth wants to speak to you."

Lukas looked rather eager to turn away, when he suddenly paused, blinking in surprise, and turned back. "How do you know my name?"

"Mm?"

"I've never met you before..." the blonde said slowly, squinting at Ariza and rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

Now that Jesse thought about it, she'd never actually _seen_ Ariza around town. And while Axel _had_ just mentioned Lukas's name, he hadn't indicated which guy in the Ocelots it was.

Ariza stared evenly at Lukas, who wasn't alone in the having-to-look-up-to-make-eye-contact-with-Ariza camp. After a few moment's pause, she said, in a voice that was perfectly serious, "I'm an esper."

"Wh-?!"

The bewildered look on his face was priceless. For the second time in a few minutes, Ariza laughed. "I'm joking. It was just a simple process of elimination. 'Lukas' is clearly a boy's name- it's also German, now that I think about it, but that doesn't have to do with what I'm talking about- so brownie here can't be Lukas," and she pointed at Maya. "Next, this guy here-" she pointed at Gill, "- can't be Lukas, because when he turned around just now, he was telling Lukas to 'get a load' of us. So that left either Celery or the blonde guy."

"Wait- who? Did you just-" Jesse began, gesturing at Aiden and trying not to burst out laughing. She wasn't the only one, seeing as now most of the people standing there were smothering huge grins or trying to choke down their laughter. Even Aiden was struggling to keep a straight face.

"My bad, I give people nicknames when I don't know them. He's Celery because his eyes remind me of celery. Anyway, it couldn't be Celery because that guy-" She indicated Gill again, "- told Lukas to 'get a load' of us, meaning that Lukas hadn't seen us yet. The only one who fulfilled that little spot is him," and she pointed at Lukas.

Lukas relaxed a little bit, giving the girl a half-smile. "Oh. I see. That was smart of you, by the way. And- he's Aiden, not Celery," he added, the smile growing a bit in amusement.

Ariza made a big show of looking Aiden up and down. "Are you sure? He looks like a Celery to me."

That was too much for Jesse, who excused herself to duck behind Axel and burst into laughter. Lukas was definitely grinning as he turned back to the lady to finish signing up for the competition.

Ariza turned to look at Aiden, placing a hand almost delicately on her hip, a smile on her lips. "Haha... I'm sorry for poking so much fun at your expense. I just got annoyed about you insulting my friends."

Olivia blinked, before glancing at Jesse and pointing at herself as if to ask, _Us?_

 _Yeah, she means us,_ Jesse nodded back from where she was still hiding behind Axel's back, although that in itself was a bit of a marvel. Outside of Olivia, Axel, and Reuben, she didn't really have many friends...

... well, she had Petra, but Petra was always pretty aloof.

Aiden's brow furrowed at Ariza a bit, before it cleared and he nodded a bit. "It's... fine..."

Ariza leaned down a bit and winked, her face right in front of his as she lightly fingered her pen. "Let's avoid doing that again, hmm?" she asked serenely in an almost conspirational tone.

But her lime green eyes were colder than ice, and she somehow managed to add a very clear message to this without explicitly stating it: _Otherwise I will shove this pen into a place where it hurts._

Aiden swallowed a bit, nervously. "O... kay." The second syllable rose into a squeak.

"Good!" and Ariza straightened up with a sunny smile. "Now, Laurie, stop hissing at Rosie please, I'm going to develop a white-noise issue with my right ear then if you don't," she added, glancing at the ocelot.

"Rosie?" To their surprise, Maya was the one to ask this, tilting her head slightly.

Ariza turned to glance at Jesse. "Jess? Do you think you could-" She made a vague gesture at the spider clinging to the back of her jacket. Laurie turned around from where he was facing forward to continue hissing at Rosie.

"Uh- yeah, sure." Quickly, Jesse trotted over from behind the cover of Axel's back and tugged the spider off gently. Besides some hissing initially, after a soft word from Ariza, Rosie didn't protest any more. Jesse sidestepped from behind Ariza and held out the tiny spider. "Uh, this is Rosie."

Aiden's eyes widened, and he jumped back about fifty feet and dove behind Gill. "Um- th-that's a-"

"Spider?" Jesse finished, looking down at Rosie. "Don't worry about her, she's harmless."

Aiden just made a very odd sound as he hunkered down behind Gill.

Gill glanced at the brunette, before shooting them a sheepish grin. "Uh, ignore him- he's- he's scared of spiders."

Jesse couldn't help the spurt of laughter that escaped her mouth. It was weird to find something like that out after so many years of being- well, not _friends_ exactly. Rivals? "You're- you're arachnophobic?" she asked the brown-haired boy, raising her eyebrows.

"D-don't laugh! Th-they're hairy! A-and they have so many _legs_ and-" Aiden nearly _squealed_ , hunkering down behind Gill.

"Alright, alright, if he's scared of spiders don't tease him, Jesse," Ariza playfully admonished the girl as she took Rosie back gently and let the spider skitter to a more obscure location. (Well, 'playfully' is relative... Ariza just sounded rather amused. Maybe that was playful for her.) "I mean, I'm trypophobic, so being scared of spiders isn't that bad."

"Trypo-"

"Fear of irregular or clusters of holes and bumps," Ariza recited automatically in response to the questioning tone in Axel's voice, almost as if she was reading out of a dictionary, before shuddering a bit. "It is _absolutely_ horrifying. Do not ever try to find pictures of it. Like, _ever._ "

Jesse grinned a bit at Ariza. It was amusing seeing the tall girl with an expression that was stronger than a faint smile or a calm face, which tended to be her usual facial expression. "Well, it's better than having a fear of long words or something."

Ariza grinned back. "Considering I write a lot, it'd be rather unfortunate if I had that fear."

"Oh- y-you write?" Aiden poked his head out a bit further, bolstered by the fact that the spider was no longer practically in his face. "I- I kinda like writing too."

"Oh really?" Ariza grinned, as if she knew something he didn't. "Well then, I might have to ask you for a look at it sometime."

Aiden's expression relaxed into something that looked... something like a _normal_ smile. "Sure, once I write something that's not dreck."

Jesse grinned a bit as the others laughed a bit.

It was weird... talking to the Ocelots without exchanging insults or being insulted. Being almost... well... _friendly_.

But it was kinda nice, too.

* * *

 **A/N: Oh, don't worry. The Ocel- ahem, 'Blaze Rods' are still going to be antagonists in Episode 5.**

 **But I'm not explaining how until then xD**

 **So... possibly never. I just wrote this chapter out of boredom xD**

 **Fun fact, I really _am_ trypophobic. Do not EVER look it up on Google. EVER. **

**homeworkoverload: Well, this IS mainly a story for fun or when I just need to take a break from all the doom and gloom in my other stories. So... xD**

 **Emily The Avenger: You're not wrong, and I'm probably gonna have a lot more on my hands once HCM is finished xD**

 **Guest: Haha, no, but I wish.**

 **NinaNaranja: Lol xD / (grins) I actually just wanted the ocelot so I could put in this scene. The spider was because, well, let's face it, I write a lot about Spider Jesse xD I didn't even realize that was a thing until you pointed it out xD / I'm glad!**

 **AquaK13: Lol xD I actually didn't even realize what I did until NinaNaranja pointed it out. / (laughs) If I die, I'm probably going to write in my will somewhere that one of my friends has to come on and update all of my stories telling you the bad news, so if I die, you guys will know. / xD it's mine, too xD / Honestly, I thought more people would dislike it, since it's an OC story xD**

 **S4SH4L4SH4theGaMeR101: Maybe...? I have no idea, maybe a bit xD / Uh, thanks! (eats the waffle)**

 **RapidSammi: (laughs) Glad to see you like it.**

 **Gamerwhogames: Yee :3**

 **LunarStarsMoons: If people stare at you for a long time, you can tell them to take a picture because it lasts longer. xD**

 **the indecisive bird: Oh believe me I know xD / True xD**

 **SofiaTheWriter88: (laughs) So did I. / Yep!**

 **J.M.M.: That wasn't a joke, that was just the first word that came to mind xD / Waiting for... what exactly?**

 **x.X. A.L. X.x**


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